Eternal Echoes

All this...

I have just posted some photos to Facebook, they are photos of our preparations for this evening when we meet together at North Shore Methodist Church in Blackpool. We will be celebrating Pentecost. We will meet to eat, share stories, talk, pray and worship together. Here are those pictures:

We love symbols, candles, water and oil will all be present this evening. The Icon and the rosaries are also important to us, to add to these we have prayer blankets and paper and pens will also be available for those wishing to write prayers or blessings and leave them in the basket. Interestingly we write more prayers for others and blessings are often prayed for friends and family. I say interestingly because when we meet as a community tonight I will be reminded once again how amazingly priviledged I am, many who I will meet with are struggling to make ends meet, many have been victims of government sanctions, some are desperate, and some are homeless. I will hear stories of the 20p Hilton ( read public toilets) and from a couple who are living in a tent, packing it up every morning and walking the streets of Blackpool with it until the pitch it again in the evening. Everything they own is contained in a suitcase.

This evening we will celebrate with cake, we will share bread and wine and prayers will be said, we know God's presence with us, last week we were overwhelmed by the love and power of God at work among us. We were made aware of a love that knows no barriers of gender, race or status, we are all loved, all valued, all important.

How can it be then that these are a good idea?

How can it be possible that a community might value others so little that they treat the other as vermin, a mere nuiscance to be disuaded from shelter?

How can it be possible in the 21st Century in a so called civilised country for us to have a definite "under-class", a forgotten, hidden ( we wish), marginalised group of people? How can this be? It makes me angry, and week by week as I meet with my friends I am driven to my knees in weeping for the plight of so many, and there are many, and for many it is a small thing that has pushed them over the edge into spiralling poverty. 

You can find the story behind the studs here, please read it and let it challenge you, the question it brings to us, "who is my neighbour?" is one that we sorely need to hear, and not I suspect only in this context. Yesterday at Church we welcomed a lovely family and their friends, a father and son were baptised, after the baptism and during a hymn I offered a blessing for any that might choose to receive on, we ran out of hymn as the queue of people coming forward grew, not just the baptism family but the regular congregation too, some of whom will gather with us this evening, all of whom were responding to the love of God.

There are times when I wonder how on earth I became caught up in the wonder of all that God is doing among us at North Shore, people are hungry for God, there are some who have church backgrounds and those who don't, people who have been hurt, confused and even ignored by church and some for whom it is all a new adventure. It is not helpful to categorise folk because " it risks turning people into ecclesiastical 'widgets' or commodities. Categorising or defining people in a way that allows them to be quantified is helpful for particular pieces of analysis but risks depersonalising human beings made in the image of God. It also feels very institutional"1 , and this move of God is not about the institution, not about the survival or otherwise of a particular church in a particular setting but about how people are being wooed by a God who loves them, in this we are simply his co-workers or channels, and I often find that my task is to stand around looking amazed and wonder what on earth will hapen next.

God is with us, this I do know, and as we gather to tell his story, the wonder of creation, incarnation , and spirit power become real in us, as we take and break bread we are nourished by him, as we pour and drink wine we are cleansed, as we bless one another with symbol of water and oil we are healed, and as we light candles our prayers ascend to heaven. We find ourselves enveloped by grace, none is excluded, no humanbeing made in the image of God should be marginalised, there is Good News for the poor, sight for the blind, healing and hope for the outcast, and freedom for the prisoners.

As I baptised baby Oscar and his Dad yesterday I used the wonderful words "All this for you", Jesus shows us clearly with outstretched bleeding hands "all this for all"

1. http://www.freshexpressions.org.uk/views/unchurched : Andrew Roberts 

Hunger...

I find myself surrounded by hunger, and surrounded by food, my hall at hone is often stocked with cans of beans, meat pies, Pot Noodles, ginger biscuits and packs of tea, hardly a day passes when I am not given something for the Comfort Zone, and I am grateful. Lynn our Chaplain brings more food, she is given more food than I am, we are always being given food, we are always sharing food, we are reminded again and again how we are all in need of basic provision, and how this basic need joins us to one another.

The Comfort Zone is a drop in for vulnerable, needy and homeless people in Blackpool, we open on a Monday night for a hot meal, and on Wednesday morning for breakfast and sandwiches. At both sessions we distribute food bags...

People are hungry, hungry for food, hungry for companionship and hungry for God...

Not a week goes by without a request for communion/ The Eucharist/Mass, I am  asked for all of these because we draw folk from a variety of backgrounds, and all are served equally, we have an open table, and we meet God together, for he is in the midst of us. 

There are times when we draw together in peace and calm, and times when we need God to break into our turmoil and angst and so we come to the table, we come in need, we come in desire, and we come because we are hungry. We are hungry for bread and wine that feeds our souls with the remembrance that God IS with us, here in the midst of us knowing our hurts and pains, knowing our vulnerability and frailty, God IS with us, here to draw us, here to feed us. 

We gather in our need, members of a community, volunteers, staff, and "clients" ( we need a better word), and around the table we are one, there are no barriers or boundaries here for Jesus himself is our host. He is with us as we approach his table, with us in and through his story, tangibly present as we become aware of the move of the Spirit, and then wonderfully, miraculously, mysteriously we feed on him. Together we become what we eat, and God is in our hands and in our mouths feeding our souls, we cannot leave unmoved or unchanged. If we do I suspect we leave unfed, we will be hungry...

I find that my own hunger for God has been awoken in this community, here I am able to be vulnerable for vulnerability is all around me, that does not mean that I spill my soul but that I own it, I own my light and my darkness, I own my joys and my sorrows, and I own my hunger for more and more of God. I need this bread and this wine, I need the prayers of invocation and consecration and I am finding myself changed for I am meeting God not only in the mystery but in the very bread that I break and the very wine that I offer. I can no longer dispose of the elements without thought I must consume them. There was a time when my pragmatic thinking ( very Methodist) would have allowed me to simply dispose of the elements without thinking, but that is no longer true, food is important, a gift, and this food has become sacred, holy, a touching place and must be treated as such, I am hungry for God, so I cannot throw God away, I must partake of him in the fullest way that I can... there can be no crumbs at this table, not baskets left over, yet he always offers more...

I finish with a poem and a couple of links, the poem I have shared before:

 

Eucharistic thoughts

.

I want to meet you

in chewable chunks of grace,

to savour the flavour

of your gift…

.

I want to spend time

contemplating the wonder

of your givenness,

I want to be

nourished, challenged

and transformed!

.

I want to gulp down

deep draughts

of your love,

to feel it’s fire

filling my heart and soul

warming my bones!

.

I want to be cleansed

and restored

as I meet you

in the brokenness of bread,

and in the cup freely offered.

.

I want to go different,

to be different!

Will you meet me here?

.

Is it right that

I should leave your table

still hungry?

 

 

Being myself with integrity

Thinking outside the box

Still outside the box

Both of these reflect my developing thinking. 

Related articles

Coming home...

The Comfort Zone...

Healing through the Eucharist

The Comfort Zone...

tonight we met,

we ate we laughed,

we talked,

we prayed,

we shared stories of hope,

stories of heartbreak,

stories of depth

and of despair,

we hugged,

we loved, 

we fought back tears

and choked on a few

angry words,

there were questions,

frustrations, 

tensions and tears,

in in the midst was God,

opening our eyes

and hearts,

calling us to find him

in one another

and in the breaking of the bread,

a holy moment

to sustain us,

hold us, nourish us

connect us,

and heal us

until we meet again.....

 

The Comfort Zone is a drop in for homeless and needy people in Blackpool it is situated at North Shore Methodist Church, but it is more than that, it is a community of folk who share their lives with one another. There is real love here in the midst of our human brokenness, volunteers and clients mix as one, and often the lines are blurred over who is helping/ ministering to who. Tonight I gave and received hugs, we broke bread together, and I saw the heartbreak of God for his people in the eyes of a young woman more hungry for God than for her jacket potato. I often feel that I cannot do enough, and God comes close and fills in the gaps, we meet him together, and that is the mystery of grace...

God with us...

Sometimes I question where God is, other times things happen that open my eyes to see that to name something a coincidence is to fail to see that we are not existing by pure chance but that God IS with us. This week has been one of those weeks.

It all began with prayers for a Comfort Zone Community member who has died recently, we thought that his funeral had taken place, but a well placed encounter with the Community Police team and we knew that this was not the case. Peter will now get a good send off in place of a paupers funeral. 

That conversation led to another one, and the Police Officer met in the cafe oposite  one church building discovered that the other church I serve is  situated right in the town centre and has a coffee shop open every day. The following day when the Officer needed somewhere to bring a young couple she brought them in to the coffee lounge. 

Coincidence, maybe, but there is more to the story, the young couple revealed that they were homeless and shared their story with us. I was in the coffee lounge but only because while I wanted to go home something told me I should stay, the Spirit at work; as events unfolded this became clearer and clearer...

Having heard the couples story  I placed a call to one of our volunteers who is amazing at finding flats for folk, she told me that she had called a landlord that morning on the off chance, but it was more than an off chance, she found his phone number on a crumpled piece of paper in the recycling box. He had a one bed room flat available. I took the young couple to see it...

The landlord was happy with them, and partly because of our good relationship with the landlords in Blackpool offered them the flat without a bond, and is happy to wait for housing benefit to come through! This afternoon I dropped them off at the flat to to sign the papers and to collect their key. They were delighted, they have been homeless for 3 months and were fleeing from violence in another town. They have an address at last, and life is beginning to look up...

Gos IS with us, and when we question that we need to remember that we see stories like this unfolding among us, and we need to hang onto a more expansive truth than we already know! 

Today we had reason to celebrate...

 

(Picture; 1; Beauty from brokenness. Picture 2: Our lovely community)

on emptiness...

I have nothing to give,

nothing to share,

I am nothing,

all is empty,

I survey the horizon

and see nothing,

my heart craves love,

my mind craves truth,

but nothing,

there is nothing, nothing of myself...

BUT there is you,

and when  I dare to lean on you,

dare to trust you,

dare to draw upon you

I become more,

I am freed,

I am me

hidden in Christ with God,

 a new creation,

transformed,

loved, 

known,

one,

filled,

confident,

me...

with God...

because he lives...

Just recently I have been feeling really overwhelmed by the demands of ministry, and of life in general if I am honest, sometimes it feels that there isn't enough of me to go around, and while I am getting quite good at saying no to the demand that does not stop the demand coming. Add to this the fact that for various reasons I have been struggling with depression lately, the kind of depression that tells me I cannot do it, the kind that erodes my confidence and makes me want to hide under the duvet for the day, and , well you get the picture, it has felt like everything is just too much...

Too much that is until I remember that I am not responsible for everyone's woes and spiritual lives, yes I am a leader and a guide, but as the saying goes you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink! Too much until those I minister to bless me in ways that challenge me to reassess my own life and remember to turn to and lean on the God who has called me.

That happened to me this evening at the Comfort Zone, a project that serves the homeless and needy community in Blackpool. The Comfort Zone is a community, although we technically have volunteers and clients there are many ways in which we support one another. Lilly was playing the piano, "Because he lives, I can face tomorrow" , a song of resurrection hope filled the church as people queued to collect food parcels and sleeping bags.

"Because he lives I CAN FACE TOMORROW", those words are still echoing in my head, added to by the very real gratefulness of so many for the little that we do. One man shared with me his hunger for God and his desire for Bible Study, another wanted to pray, not for things for himself but a prayer of thanksgiving, people were lighting candles, chatting and generally enjoying being together. In this community I found a place to stop, a place to be grateful and a place where I received as much as I gave, more in fact. Real faith is expressed by many in our community, real faith that relys upon God because there is nothing and nobody else to be relied upon, real faith that knows;

"3 “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.

4 “You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.

5 “You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought."

Matthew 5: 3-5 The Message

On my way out this evening I was stopped by another of our community who gave me a huge bear hug because I looked like I needed it, she was right, I did. I am still tired, and still overwhelmed, I am still struggling with depression, but this I know, I am not alone, and "because he lives I CAN face tomorrow.